Pokemon GO Comes to the Dreamcast VMU Next Year Thanks to a Homebrew Wizard

Passionate fans around the world have come up with some pretty incredible homages over the years, such as the recent Metroid 2 remake AM2R, or the amazingly detailed Pokemon Uranium. There was even a proper, full game released to the SEGA Dreamcast in 2014, a console that had at the time been dead for over a decade. Now one such fan has taken it upon himself to port the latest mobile phenomenon, Pokemon GO, to none other than the Dreamcast VMU.

Instagram user guacasaurus_mex has previously programmed and released downloadable versions of Street Race and Flappy Bird for the VMU, but Pokemon GO will be an entirely different beast.

A post shared by guacasaurus_mex (@guacasaurus_mex) on Aug 19, 2016 at 11:30pm PDT

He isn’t planning to release the game for download until 2017 because of the time it will take to draw up the sprites for all 151 Gen 1 Pokemon. Of course since the VMU doesn’t have GPS or augmented reality functionality, he’s working around that by instead using a randomly generated map grid instead. In place of throwing Poké Balls there will be a timing-based mini-game you must win to catch the monsters.

If you’ve still got a Dreamcast laying around with a long-neglected VMU in tow, now might be the perfect time to dust it off.